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Theodore W. Allen, The Invention of the White Race, Volume 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control (Verso Books: London 1994).
BIOLOGY TELLS us that race is a social construct. Racism, likewise, might be sociogenic rather than phylogenic -- "homologous with gender and class oppression." (1) But at the end of the 20th century can we be absolutely certain about the second part of this proposition? Theodore Allen has no doubts whatever. Racism is always and everywhere a function of the need of one class to exert social control over another.
This wide-ranging book -- the first of a planned three volume set -- develops this proposition by examining an "Irish mirror for insights into the nature of racial oppression ... and ruling class control in the United States." (159) Two thirds of the book is about Ireland, and while it is based entirely on secondary sources, those sources are impressively numerous, if at times distinctly quirky in the areas I know...